One of my favorite things to do when I come across a new WordPress-powered blog is to type ?s=wordpress into the address bar, which searches their site for posts mentioning WordPress. I like to get a read on what people think about the engine that powers their thoughts. While I enjoy the ones that offer praise and appreciate the ones that provide constructive criticism, the best result is when I get zero hits. That’s when I know WordPress is doing its job: when people aren’t even aware they’re using it because they’re so busy using it!
I’ve heard a lot of Social Media Prophets proclaim that the tools don’t matter, that it’s all about the content and the connections being formed.
Ideally yes, the tools shouldn’t matter. The tools should be so intuitive that our awareness of them fades to nothingness. But as long as ?s=wordpress keeps returning hits, they do matter. In fact, the sure sign that we’ve reached the point where the tools don’t matter is when the statement “the tools don’t matter” is so obvious a statement that no one would waste time making it.
Mark on WordPress 
I love ?s= to create my site search tags XD (just like lorelle does)
Tools matter without a doubt. Invisible or visible. Which is why I scream so loudly about some sites without a search form anywhere. I’m forced to use
?s=helpmefindstuff. That’s when a useful tool comes in handy when in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.I think about all those who don’t know and what they are missing. And then pity the blog owner who doesn’t know what they are missing when they don’t offer the most basic of tools.
Thanks for being the wise one again.
Why not just subscribe to a Google blog search on “wordpress”? 🙂 Less manual labor.
Too bad there are so many sites with /wordpress/ in their URL. Links to those also show up as results, even if the word wordpress is not used in the article.
Other than that: I’m often surprised to see that there are people who don’t know the power of GET requests in the browser addressbar.
Aaron,
Because it’s noisy. I do pop in from time to time… especially when a new release comes out, but there’s a whole lot more there than “WP users talking about WP on their WP blogs.”